Articles Tagged with“jupiter sales tax attorney”

You have a business that sells goods to your customers in other states. Recently, you heard that you should have collected sales tax on certain transactions or that the money you collected as sales tax should have been remitted to that state. You suspect that if you contact the state directly about your issue, the state may decide to audit you or bring you to jail for not remitting the taxes you collected. What do you do? What can give you peace of mind?

In comes the Voluntary Disclosure Program. With the Voluntary Disclosure Program, you pay the state its tax and interest, have most or all penalties waived, and most importantly, you avoid going to jail. At the end of the day, the Voluntary Disclosure Program truly is the best solution to some of the worst tax problems. But what is the Voluntary Disclosure Program and how do you qualify?

The Voluntary Disclosure Program is the process of initiating contact with a state to come clean on potential tax liabilities. To qualify for the Voluntary Disclosure Program, you cannot have been contacted by the state. If you have been contacted by the state before you apply for the program, most states recognize this contact as disqualifying you from the Voluntary Disclosure Program. However, some states may nevertheless allow you to enter the Voluntary Disclosure Program. The moral here is that as soon as you discover a tax liability that you wish to disclose, you need to enter the Voluntary Disclosure Program immediately.

The United States Constitution expressly forbids ex post facto laws with respect to both the federal and state governments.[i] An ex post facto law is one that retroactively changes the legal status and consequences of a particular action. The easiest way to understand it is in the criminal realm. Today, I ate a yogurt. Two years from now, the government passes a law saying it is a third-degree felony to eat yogurt and makes the law retroactive for a 5-year period. While eating my yogurt today was not against the law, I am still, two years later, guilty of a felony and can be punished accordingly. Fortunately, the government is not too interested in yogurt. Unfortunately, the government is very interested in tax.

In 2014, Michigan passed 2014 PA 282, a retroactive tax law replacing the elective three-factor apportionment formula from the Multistate Tax Compact to which Michigan adhered with a new single-factor apportionment formula. This may have been just another disappointment to Taxpayers, who are regularly disappointed by the creative and nefarious ways in which states try to drum up revenue. But with a retroactive application to 2008, it was just plain devastating.

It is no surprise that the state supreme court upheld the state’s interest in collecting more tax. The case challenging this law was in fact 50 consolidated cases in Gillette Commercial Operations North America & Subsidiaries et al. v. Dep’t of Treasury, No. 325258 (Mich. Ct. App. Sept. 29, 2015). The question now is: will the Supreme Court hear the case? The Department of treasury argues that the Supreme Court can’t. Rather than a retroactive law, the state argues that 2014 PA 282 is simply a clarification of the preexisting law. Therefore, under the state statutory-construction law, the Michigan state court had adequate and independent state law ground to uphold 2014 PA 282 and the Supreme Court of the United States does not have the jurisdiction to overturn it.

Tennessee is the latest of states to jump on the economic nexus bandwagon. In an effort to sidestep the physical presence the proposed rule would require out-of-state dealers that engage in the regular or systematic solicitation of consumers in Tennessee through any means and make sales exceeding $500,000 to Tennessee consumers during the calendar year would be considered to have substantial nexus with the state. One substantial nexus is established, the dealers would be required to register with the state and collect and remit sales and use tax.

Similar to recent rulemaking in Alabama, Tennessee does not believe its position offends the Commerce Clause. The proposed rule, may go into effect on or about November 8, 2016. It is worthy to note the rule is subject to committee review in both house of the Tennessee legislature and legislative approval is needed before a rule can become permanent.

Tennessee is not the only state attempting to combat Quill. Similarly, Alabama and South Dakota are litigating whether their economic nexus standards are sufficient to satisfy the Commerce Clause substantial nexus requirement. Earlier this year, South Dakota adopted the economic nexus for sales and use tax purposes. South Dakota is currently a plaintiff and defendant in two separate cases addressing the constitutionality of the substantial nexus law.

If states could impose tax on every company that makes a sale within its borders, they would. Luckily, the Commerce Clause of the Constitution requires something known as “nexus,” or a connection, between a company and state in order for that company to be subject to state and local taxes. The standards for nexus can be ambiguous, particularly in recent years as a result of the radical changes to traditional business models that have occurred with the internet.

While nexus may seem easy to determine using the physical presence test, the definition of physical presence has in fact been something that courts across the country have struggled with since the beginning. That struggle has only become increasingly complicated with the internet and virtual marketplaces that no longer require a company to open a brick and mortar shop everywhere it wants to sell its products.

Recently, Washington state has found nexus with a company that made wholesale sales through infomercials. This particular company sent employees to Washington to participate in trade shows and other promotional events. However, they did not have a physical business location within the state.

On December 14, 2015, the Supreme Court of the State of Utah issued its ruling in the case of DIRECTV and DISH Network v. Utah State Tax Commission. At issue in this case was a tax scheme that provided a sales tax credit for “an amount equal to 50%” of the franchise fees paid by pay-TV providers to local municipalities for use of their public rights-of-way.

The franchise fees were imposed for the running of cable and the construction of hubs on public property. Therefore, it is exclusively cable providers who pay franchise fees and qualify for the credit. Meanwhile, satellite providers such as DIRECTV are not subject to franchise fees and do not qualify for the tax credit.

DIRECTV argued that the tax credit was a violation of the dormant commerce clause of the Constitution. The dormant commerce clause is a legal term that means that states cannot either discriminate against interstate commerce or unduly burden interstate commerce because the power to do is in the hands of Congress. From a practical perspective, allowing 50 states to regulate interstate commerce differently would cause complete chaos, so the federal government wants to reserve that power for itself. Furthermore, states’ motivation to help their own local businesses would weaken the national economy as a whole.Continue reading

State and local governments are continually searching for ways to increase revenue through taxation of online companies conducting business within their state or county. One such way is by assessing a rental tax against online travel companies (“OTCs”).

OTCs typically facilitate the rental of a hotel room for vacationers and charge a fee for their services. OTCs play a significant role in the hotel rental business by providing consumers with a variety of choices based on price, location, and other factors. OTCs also provide benefits to hotels through promotion and advertising, and providing the ability for vacationers to rent a room at a lower price. Further, OTCs increase hotel occupancy rates and promote tourism thereby creating revenue for state and counties.Continue reading

I have been writing about the taxability of the online travel companies for some time. Recently, the Florida Supreme Court case of Alachua County v. Expedia, Inc., ruled that the local bed tax should be imposed on the amount the hotel received rather than the higher amount the customer pays the Online Travel Company (“OTC”). Similarly, the Court of Appeal of Wisconsin recently held that reservation facilitation services are not among the taxable services enumerated in section 77.52(2)(a)1, Wisconsin Statutes.

In the Wisconsin case, the Wisconsin Department of Revenue (“WDOR”) attempted to assess tax on any “internet service provider” that provides lodging throughout Wisconsin. The WDOR argued that the markup amount retained by the internet service provider is subject to tax under section 77.52(2)(a)1, Wisconsin Statutes.

However, the law worked very differently. Specifically, in Wisconsin, section 77.52(2)(a)1, Wisconsin Statutes, tax is only imposed on “the furnishing of rooms or lodging to transients by hotelkeepers, motel operators and other persons furnishing accommodations that are available to the public, irrespective of whether membership is required for use of the accommodations.” The crux of this case turns to the word “furnishing.” Is an online travel company “furnishing” a hotel room?